Tips for first year teachers

[Joel Muñoz]

Hello everyone. This upcoming school year will be my first as a teacher and as I was telling Lydia I have the privilege and responsibility to teach K-5 ELL's in a pull-in/push-out setting. Any tips or suggestions for my position specifically or for first year teachers in general? Thank you!

[P. Murphy]

General tips:

Touch base with the parents of your students as soon as possible, accentuating the positive. If you then need to contact them about a concern later on, the positive relationship you established in the beginning will serve you well. Even when bringing up a concern, sandwich it in between positive comments. (If language differences present a challenge to communicating with parents, reach out to community members, family, friends to find someone who can act as a interpreter and/or translator.)

Get to know your students- find out their interests/hobbies and make connections to these interests in your lessons whenever possible. Try to make cultural connections, too. Learn, then use, some key phrases in at least some of the first languages of your students.

Make friends not only with the teachers you work with, but with the school secretary, custodian staff, cafeteria workers, etc.

[P. Murphy]

Here's a link to a resource that you might find helpful (Note: Stenhouse is temporarily offering a FREE browsing, so take advantage of it while it lasts):
:
Surviving and Thriving
Making Classroom Management and Organization Work for You
and Your Students
Maria Carty • Grades K-12 • 32 pp flipchart •
http://www.stenhouse.com/8251.asp?r=n189
This practical flipchart provides tips that you can use tomorrow on routines,
time management, planning, space & materials, grouping, transitions,
refocusing, encouraging discussion, reporting out, record-keeping, and more.
(Web page descriptor)

[Maureen Morrison]

Be sure people "see" you working. I teach both English and ESL. When I am wearing my ESL hat my colleagues want to know "what I do." It's as if they think an ELL should conquer the language in a month or two simply b/c you get to spend 30 minutes a day with the student. There will be more empathy for you and your job if you let people see how many things you do. Good luck.

[Cassy]

Welcome to teaching! Get your hands on lots of good picture books that you can use to anchor your lessons on. Good mentor text is a must. Here's a good site to get you started - http://www.writingfix.com/picture_book_prompts.htm

Read-alouds are essential. Kids LOVE to be read to. And make sure you write with your kids everyday, in different formats, for different purposes. Don't be afraid to do poetry from Day 1 - many pattern formats of poetry are "ELL friendly" and can be first experiences in vocab and grammar. Feel free to contact me directly for awesome poem activities that will get your ELLs writing from the very beginning.

I also recommend you take full advantage of Web 2.0 technologies such as Twitter and create a PLN for yourself - there are lots of awesome educators out there with a vast set of experiences and expertise! (Follow me @CassyLL) Good Luck!!!

[Joani Ramirez]

Hi yes welcome to teaching! Just to echo what our colleagues have suggested, I would develop a relationship with the other teachers who work with your students. This will help give you a grounding as to what content to support the students with when you push into a classroom but will also give all of you the opportunity to share information about the students strengths and needs as you work with them in the different classroom settings. There will be insights you will be able to provide based on your experience with the students (yes, even as a first year teacher) that will be valuable for the other teachers to be aware of when they are working with the students without you in the room. Also from my experience doing "push-in" make sure that both your fellow teacher and the students see you as a teacher, not an assistant, and that you clearly establish how you and your fellow teacher will work together in the classroom in terms of procedures, classroom management, and planning. Good luck!!

[ginny thomas]

Welcome to the best job in the world ! Make learning a two-way street. Learn as much about their cultures as you can, and learn a few words of greeting in their languages. Don't ever underestimate your importance in their lives. Your kindness and efforts to teach them will be appreciated beyond words. They will probably have diverse academic backgrounds, and their abilities may not reflect their ages or grades. Meet them where they are, and pull them up. My first year, I was often sick from exposure to those exotic international germs. Since then, I have had a bullet-proof immune system!

[ginny thomas]

I forgot to tell you - everything I know I learned from other teachers. Make friends with the best people around you.

[Rachel Counce]

I wish I had started a scrapbook from day one. Take lots of pictures and keep a journal. Teaching ESL is the most interesting and rewarding teaching position available. Document your journey! You will meet many new friends. ENJOY!!!!

[Adela Solis]

I am not sure what pull in/push out is. In whatever setting,if you are going to teach combined grade levels (or multi-level groups), it will be necessary to use grade level materials/curriculum and grade level standards with them to ensure that they are exposed to concepts and skills that are expected and tested at that grade level (they should be taught same curriculum as other students, the methods are what vary). It is also critical that you coordinate with the other teachers that have them in their classes so that all teachers are aware of what each other is teaching and how student are progressing. You want their instruction to match their language and developmental needs and to proceed smoothly and spirally - no repetition of same skills or concepts but rather have these be reinforced and moved to the next level. Remember also that ELL students' instruction should never be watered down. Special note: some mainstream teachers may not be aware of the pedagogical principles I am sharing here, you may need to share with them; offer to plan together so you can learn from them too.

[Ed Wiederer]

Hi Joel. I'm in the same boat as you -- first year teaching, doing push-in/pull-out in K-6. I was hired days before school started and am struggling to keep up with everything. Love the tips on here so far, and hope they keep coming.

One challenge I face is trying to do push-in effectively (push-in, at least to me, means giving students instruction in their own classroom rather than taking them to a separate space.) I work with from 1 to 9 students at a time, and often find myself doing a separate lesson while the classroom teacher is teaching the rest of the class. It's very distracting for everyone involved, and short of giving up and pulling them out to my office space, I'd love to hear any tips for improving on the push-in end.

Since we're online, the other question I have is about effective ways to use tech with ELLs -- blogging, specific tools (i.e. Voicethread), etc.

Thanks!

[Lydia Breiseth]

Hey Ed,

Thanks for sharing your experiences on the blog! It would be great to have a group of new teachers if you're interested in starting one......good luck and we'll keep our eyes out for more push-in/pull-out info!